Florida Family Research Network, Inc.

1. Child Abuse and Chronic Anxiety 

2. Child Abuse and Nuclear Family Emotional Process 

3. Emotional Regression 

4. Child Abuse and Differentiation of Self

1. Understand child abuse and family violence as a symptom of individual and family functioning. 

2. Understand the development of child abuse and family violence in families where the perpetrators are family and household members. 

3. Recognize the roles of non-abusing family members in child abuse and how these roles impact the severity of symptoms and family functioning  

4. Better develop clinical hypotheses in their practice with families where child abuse has occurred. 

5. Increase understanding of the challenges of clinical neutrality and strategies for managing one’s self in clinical practice.

Walter Howard Smith, Jr. career focuses on the use of Bowen family systems theory to understand the functioning of families, organizations, and social groups. This theory views the family as a single interlocking set of relationships, rather than interacting individuals. In the past twenty years, Dr. Smith has focused on understanding how family relationships change with stresses and result in child abuse, domestic violence, and conflict.

Dr. Smith is a licensed psychologist with a private practice that specializes in treating children, couples, and families. He is the founding member of the Western Pennsylvania Family Center, an education resource center for lay and professional persons interested in family therapy and family studies. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Psychology Program at Duquesne University. He has presented lectures and conferences on child abuse and family emotional process throughout the United States and in several other countries.

He is an organization consultant to several organizations and businesses, including a university department, an employee assistance firm, a religious order, a medical practice, and several human service non-profit organizations. His consultation focuses on leadership coaching and organization conflict.

Dr. Smith is recently retired from the Allegheny County Department of Human Services as the Deputy Director for Children Youth and Families and the Clinical Director for the department. His responsibilities included managing 217 million dollars of child welfare services that reach 1,700 families and 4,000 children. He had 630 staff and child welfare funds 150 agencies that provided prevention, support and intervention services.

In 2012 Dr. Smith retired as the Executive Director of Family Resources. Family Resources is a private non-profit organization that prevents and treats child abuse by serving more than 20,000 children, teens, and adults in the Pittsburgh region. The agency’s twenty-three services span from after-school programs in subsidized housing communities to psychotherapy services for all members of a family. Prevention programs include community-based support groups, parent education, a family support center, nature retreats for families, and public education and information. Dr. Smith became the agency’s first clinical director in 1987, and became its second executive director in 1997.